


Not My Heart

by dreamsheartstory



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, assumed death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4849580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/pseuds/dreamsheartstory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Lexa saves her people from the mountain she believes that Clarke has died while taking it down as she is nowhere to be found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not My Heart

_I made this decision with my head. Not my heart._

The words echo in her body, all that is holding her together. The feeling of Clarke’s lips pressed against hers is a ghost that haunts her. The Commander may be cold but Lexa is not without a heart.

She feels apart from the victory. Her people are safe but she is at war with herself. Their joys are hers but joy and happiness cut like a knife through her. All around her is celebration; she is once again victorious as Commander she should be triumphant. Rescuing their people from the Mountain Men, ensuring that no future generations will become Reapers, this has been the dream for grounders long since before the Sky People fell to Earth.

Each smile she gives is genuine and it carves out a piece of her. For she does feel the jubilation, the ecstatic cry of freedom. This is what she fought for. So when one of her people takes her hand she gives it to them, gives herself fully in that moment. She has to. They need to see the relief and the triumph in her eyes so they know it is real. The Commander makes it real.

Her people have been terrorized for too long.

With each hand she lets go it takes a piece of her with it. Lexa is broken and The Commander cannot hold on to all of the pieces so she lets them go; they’re in good hands now, loyal and kind and strong hands. Hands not steeped in blood. Tonight she will accept what she has done or it will eat her alive.

Her deal was logical. Based on what she knows of the Sky People, what she knew of the Mountain Men, it had to be done. It ensured the survival of her people and that is her job, she reminds herself.

Lexa has been left for a moment to stare into the fire alone. It is hot on her skin but she doesn’t feel warm. Like this, alone, it’s harder to remain The Commander. There is no one to give herself to, no one to comfort, to celebrate with. When she is not her own it is easier not to feel the pain. There is nothing left but the ghosts in her head and she is only Lexa for a moment.

The night has drawn on and she takes her leave, her people will celebrate in her honor. Now that she has been given back to herself, allowed a moment to exist alone, she is reminded of all the ghosts in her heart. _Love is weakness._ Her mind throws back her own words. It is weakness but it is also the greatest gift. She swallows thickly and pushes into her tent.

_Not my heart._

The Sky People trapped in the mountain. Clarke, left behind. Lexa wonders if she ever would have understood. If the roles had been reversed she would but... Her mind catches on the exception, tripping over it because now she will never know. Lexa sinks to her knees, her breathing shallow. Her hands dig into the earth. It pushes back at her when she wishes it to swallow her whole. Clarke would have felt the decision in her heart. It would have eaten at her. Lexa can feel the ghost of the kiss, the warmth of her just a breath away.

_I’m not ready to be with anyone. Not yet._

Waiting ripped the chance from her. Tore it from her heart and left a hole. The Commander will move on but Lexa will not. Like losing Costia, losing Clarke takes a piece of her soul. She can feel the sharp edges press against her ribs. Her heart bleeds. _Love is weakness_. The words are a bitter bile on the back of her tongue that she will taste for all her days to come, a constant reminder that she will never be allowed the luxuries she fights for her people to have. With a heaving breath she hauls herself onto her bed.

First she pulls off her boots, then she undoes the buckles, taking off each layer wrapped around her in careful succession. Each piece of clothing is a physical reminder of the mental armor she puts up between who she has to be and who she is.

Alone she is bare and no one will see her like this again.

She can never allow the vulnerability to show. If she does she will risk the lives of her people and that is the one thing she cannot do. Tonight will be the last night she allows herself this weakness. She feels too deeply and it will destroy her.

Clarke is dead and it will destroy her.

A scream bubbles in her throat as the reality of it trembles around her. It tears at her insides, ripping them to shreds. She can not let it escape but in tiny gasps and exhalation of breath too sharp and too quick. No one must hear her soul shattering. Her people can not know the price she pays in her heart.

_I made this decision with my head._

Lexa pulls the furs up over her head, pressing her face into her knees. She feels like she is drowning, no amount of breathing fills her lungs with air. The words that had fallen from her lips, a chance, a hope that Clarke had understood. _Not my heart._ A moment had passed and all she had was hope. It shattered when the mountain fell. Her tears are hot on her knees.

Lexa shakes, her body convulsing in pain as sobs wrack her body. Her throat is raw with a silent scream. Her mind congeles around a single thought. Clarke is dead.

In the morning she will have people to attend to, wounded to care for, clans to reunite. In the morning she will have to prepare for the journey to Polis.

Tonight she permits herself the luxury of breaking down, to feel with her heart what she cannot allow to control her. In the dark, hidden beneath a layer of furs, she allows herself weakness, to tremble at the price she paid and to come undone. Clarke’s lips are the ghost of a memory against hers as Lexa bites into the flesh on the palm of her hand to keep from screaming aloud. She made a decision with her head and it cost her her heart.

 

 


End file.
